After announcing a much more capable version of Siri in June 2024, Apple delayed the Apple Intelligence-powered version of the personal assistant in May 2025. Around that time, there was a now-infamous pep talk given to the Siri team by the then-senior director of the project.
Robby Walker wasn’t a name most Apple followers would recognize, but the Siri senior director’s reported speech to rally the engineers behind the incomplete effort stood out.
In the team meeting, Walker reportedly compared the unfinished project to a failed attempt to set a swimming distance record:
Walker compared the endeavor to an attempt to swim to Hawaii. “We swam hundreds of miles — we set a Guinness Book for World Records for swimming distance — but we still didn’t swim to Hawaii,” he said. “And we were being jumped on, not for the amazing swimming that we did, but the fact that we didn’t get to the destination.”
More importantly, Walker put the state of Apple’s work into context with the wider industry, explaining that some competitors have shipped worse versions of similar features, but Apple’s quality bar wasn’t yet met.
Since then, Walker moved to a different team where he reportedly worked on an AI search project called Answers. Apple currently relies on OpenAI’s ChatGPT to provide general world knowledge for Apple Intelligence and Siri.
As of today, however, it’s being reported by Mark Gurman for Bloomberg that Robby Walker is leaving Apple at the end of October.
Gurman adds that the Answers project is still ongoing and on track to ship in 2026. The report adds that Walker’s number of deputies was dramatically reduced after shifting from the Siri team to the Answers, Information and Knowledge team.
Following the delay, Siri moved from AI chief John Giannandrea to Mike Rockwell, who spearheaded Apple Vision Pro and visionOS.
Apple is expected to release the new version of Siri as soon as spring 2026. Bloomberg has reported that Apple is considering using Google’s Gemini model to power parts of the new Siri.
Separately, Apple’s search deal with Google largely went unaffected by the court decision that could have cut off a major revenue stream for Apple. Apple could still use its own in-house model to power the upgraded Siri, but it sounds like Google could become a key player in helping Apple get the new Siri up and running.
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